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Sea Hugger started this petition to Phillip Morris International
Problem
4.5 Trillion cigarette butts are littered worldwide each year (thetruth.com). Cigarette butts are 98% plastic and take up to 10 years to degrade. Cigarette butts are the most common form of human-made litter in the world, and are the worst ocean contimanant (forbes.com).

Solution
We demand that Phillip Morris International, the largest tobacco company, take responsibilities for the pollution they cause by creating a cigarette filter that is biodegradable, or removing the filters from their products entirely. Research has shown that filtered cigarettes are no safer than unfiltered cigarettes (newyorksmokefree.com)

Personal story
Sea Hugger is a nonprofit organization working to end the environmental devastation of marine plastics through education, promoting plastic alternatives, sponsoring recycling programs abroad, and hosting beach cleanups. To learn more, please visit http://www.seahugger.org

In a new report titled Foresight Future of the Sea by the UK Government Office for Science, discovered that the amount of plastic in the ocean could triple by the year 2025.

Currently, there is already over 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic trash in the world’s ocean and with the current amount expected to triple in such a short time, we need to address the reality of what we have created.

The report warns that the current health of the oceans could have some cruel implications for biodiversity, noting that there is already a 49% decline in marine vertebrate populations between 1970 and 2012.

The world is slowly starting to wake up to our plastic problem but we still use way too much on a global scale. Walk into any super market or restaurant and pay attention to the amount of single-use plastic being used and quickly, it becomes evident how vast our addiction has become.

Governments have started to implement bans on plastic items but not yet on a scale that we need. One of the authors’ primary recommendations is to reduce plastic pollution in the sea through the development of new biodegradable plastics and public awareness campaigns. The authors note that that the UK and the world need to seriously reassess the way it manages the ocean.

Recent reports have started to identify just how troubling plastic pollution has become. Last week, a separate report found that 93 percent of major brand bottled water contained microplastics inside of the bottled water.

The time is now to reduce plastic waste. Governments need to start identifying how to reduce waste but it also starts at a personal level. Every decision a person makes to say to no to plastic is decision that is positively impacting our environment.

A new bill has been introduced that aims to reduce cigarettes on Florida beaches. Sarasota House Republican Joe Gruters is looking for the state to bank smoking on all public beaches through bill SB218, which would fine first-time violators $25 or 10 hours of community service.

If Florida passes the bill, it would go into effect July 1st, 2019.

The bill may face potential problems as this isn’t the first time representatives have tried to restrict smoking on beaches in Florida. In 2017, a law that was in place for five years and banned smoking in Sarasota County public parks and beaches was tossed out by a judge whom declared it unconstitutional on the grounds that local jurisdictions couldn’t ban something that was legal on a state level.

Hopefully though, with the potential ban being state wide this time, there will not be another loop-hole that would allow the bill to be thrown out if it does get through the legislatures.

Florida would not be the only state with this ban in place as New Jersey recently banned smoking in public beaches which carries a fine of $250.00

Cigarette butt continue to be the largest single polluter in the ocean damaging habitats, poisoning fish and costing tax dollars for cleanup and disposal, according to environmental experts.

Outside of direct pollution on the beach, cigarettes make their way to the sea due to countless storm drains, streams and rivers around the world. The waste often disintegrates into microplastics easily consumed by wildlife. Researchers have found the detritus in some 70 percent of seabirds and 30 percent of sea turtles.

As Florida holds some of the most visited and popular beaches in the world, banning smoking would be a huge win in helping to contain ocean pollution.

US Border Patrol On Horseback
It turns out that the most common methods for transporting illegal drugs would bypass Trump’s wall. They are most commonly concealed in vehicles and tunnels under the border are also used. The most logical control method would be passive detection often used for border control on the European continent.
“The most common method employed by these TCOs [Transnational Criminal Organizations] involves transporting illicit drugs through U.S. Ports of Entry (POEs) in passenger vehicles with concealed compartments or commingled with legitimate goods on tractor trailers.” (Paul E. Knierim Deputy Chief of Operations, Office of Global Enforcement Drug Enforcement Administration Before the Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration United States Senate December 12, 2018)

Apparently not much has changed since the old movie “El Norte”. Note the passage by truck and passage through a drain pipe (tunnel) in the movie trailer: http://youtu.be/jPoqBCvyG9k

“Chairman Thompson Calls on Secretary Nielsen to Come Before the Homeland Security Committee to Answer for the Administration’s Border Security Policies
Jan 4, 2019 Correspondence
(WASHINGTON) – Today, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen requesting her to testify before the Committee for its first hearing of the new Congress on the Administration’s failed border security agenda. Secretary Nielsen has only appeared before the Committee once.

In the letter, Chairman Thompson wrote:Your border security presentation submitted to Congress today is yet another example of the misinformation and outright lies the Trump Administration has used to make the case for the President’s boondoggle border wall, defend the government shutdown, and distract the American people from a border policy so flawed that children have died in Department of Homeland Security custody. Squandering American taxpayer…

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Donald Trump visited the border this past week. And he’s mulling over whether or not to declare a national emergency regarding the wall, and that would help designate funds for said project. Of course, that has Democrats in a tizzy. They’ve come up with the talking point (and it’s been repeated ad nauseum by the mainstream media) as “a manufactured crisis”.

Well, living in a border state, and not one that is as inundated with illegal aliens as some by the way, I can tell you first hand that yes, it is a crisis, and no, it’s not manufactured. It’s real.

Now, the big question is, does the President of the United States have the right to declare “a national emergency”, and if so, has it ever been done before?

The answer is certainly he does. In fact, yes, it’s been done as late as the last president. Obama declared…

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MRS AMERICAN CITIZEN started this petition to The American People and 1 other

Taken from an investigation file from freebeacon.com into TLAIB campaign donations ..

Congresswoman-elect Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) did not disclose the name of the source of funds for a fellowship that was paid by liberal billionaire George Soros—as required by the House ethics committee—and also disclosed a lesser amount than she received, according to a review of tax and financial disclosure forms.

Freebeacon.com: The Washington Free Beacon obtained the most recent copies of tax forms for a number of Soros’s organizations, including the Open Society Institute, the legal name for the Open Society Foundations, the entity in which Soros pushes millions in funding to a number of liberal causes and organizations.

An expenditure of $85,307 to Rashida Tlaib in Detroit, Mich., from 2017 is shown on page 97 of the 321-page report to “to increase involvement of disenfranchised urban communities of color with their local governance process by creating a community benefits strategy for equitable development and creating a leadership training for impacted residents focused on negotiation skills and identifying leverage at the local level.”

TRICARE Reserve Select (TRS) provides members of the National Guard and Reserves access to quality, low-cost, health insurance. However, since Federal employees who are also Reservists are eligible for health coverage through the Federal Employee Health Benefit (FEHB) Program, they are prohibited from purchasing TRS. In other words, these employees are subject to all the requirements of being a Reservist, including combat deployments and emergency response duty as members of the Guard, but are prevented from taking full advantage of the benefits available to them as Reservists due to a legal technicality.

From an employee-perspective, TRS is a much more affordable program. The average FEHB monthly employee premium for family coverage in 2017 (of all fee-for-service nationwide plans combined) wss approximately $380 per month, compared to $218 for TRS. This means that, on average, an employee is ‘penalized’ $2,000 more per year for health coverage than their part-time counterparts. The ‘penalty’ reaches $4,000 more per year when you compare TRS to the $551/mo. for Blue Cross Blue Shield’s Standard plan (the most popular FEHB plan since 1990). That difference increases every year as FEHB premiums go up.

We urge Congress to fix this inequity by amending Federal law to allow Federal employees who are members of the Guard and Reserve access to TRS.

Because Presidents and members of Congress have continued to use financially devastating Federal shutdowns to advance political agendas, we call for the Congress to immediately draw up a constitutional amendment to prevent this from ever happening again. The latest Trump shutdown is destroying the lives of millions of families of federal workers and contractors. These furloughs are hurting our businesses that employ many Americans.

The scenes of trash at our national parks and monuments make us the laughingstock of the world.

The politicians listed below have proven their ability to reach across the aisle. The expertise of constitutional law professors CongressmanJamie Raskins, my Maryland Congresspersonhi and President Obama will be invaluable in shaping this amendment. They must begin research on this critical issue IMMEDIATELY.

Because President Trump has threatened an unprecedented shutdown for years over the border wall, this Committee must go to work immediately to draft this critical piece of legislation.

The BIPARTISAN Shutdown Constitutional Committee should include but not be limited to the following people:

Presidents Barack Obama and George Bush

Senators Cory Gardner and Lisa Murkowski

Congresspersons Jamie Raskins and Eleanor Holmes Norton

Because many of our supporters believe that human efforts to solve this crisis have utterly failed, we call for a Higher Being to help and intervene. In order to receive truly Divine Guidance for ending this Shutdown, it is our prayer that the current high level meetings between Trump and Democrats be opened with prayer. We know from our personal religious experiences that this simple recognition of the sovereignty of God will bring this shutdown nightmare to a conclusion.

Weather permitting, concerned citizens and furloughed workers are asked to join us on Capitol Hill for a picket/protest and prayer vigil rally for No More Shutdowns and a Constitutional Amendment to Prevent Future Shutdown on Tuesday, January 8 from 1 to 3 PM in front of the US House of Representatives.

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Allow military members to decide if they want to pay for a meal card or not
Ryan Hummell started this petition to President Donald J. Trump and 2 others

Our great men and women of the military deserve the right to choose how their money is spent. Currently, troops living in the barracks are forced to pay $370 a month for a meal card to eat at the chow hall. Chow hall hours don’t line up with everybody’s schedule, and often times, people are forced to spend extra money on food. On weekends, the chow halls are only open for 2 meals a day. From a financial standpoint, it is easily possible to buy a months worth of food for less than what comes out for BAS. Our military gets paid little as it is, they should be afforded the right to decide on how they pay for their food.

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Hannah M started this petition to President Donald J. Trump and 7 others

Our military veterans are heroes. They face struggles that we couldn’t imagine, and they do it selflessly to protect our great country. However, their transition home can often be just as difficult because of mental and physical ailments from their service. The waitlist for the VA is far too long to quickly handle the care of every returning veteran, but their medical needs are urgent. Some of these needs can only be treated through direct medical care, but other needs can be met through a service dog.

Service dogs can be trained to care for people with PTSD, visual impairments, hearing impairments, mobility impairments, and many other conditions. Furthermore, these dogs can ensure that the veteran is never alone while dealing with these conditions.

Currently, the VA offers service dogs to those with hearing/sight loss and mobility impairments. However, they do not offer dogs to veterans with psychological issues, such as PTSD. I am advocating that, as part of the VA Compensation and Pension (C&P) evaluation process, the VA offer dogs to all veterans diagnosed with psychological or physical conditions.

This small step would make a massive difference in the lives of these men and women. They’ve given everything for us. Let’s give back to them.

Stop Penalizing Veterans Retired from the Military Due to Service‑Incurred Disabilities
Kevin Reinholz started this petition to U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services Senate Armed Services Committee and 1 other

Until recently, military retirees who were also rated by the Department of Veterans Affairs as being at least 50% disabled as a result of their military service were forced to choose between receiving either their military pension OR disability compensation through the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Congress partially corrected this injustice, recognizing that a military pension is earned compensation for a service member’s faithful service to our nation and a promised benefit for his or her military service (10 USC, Chapters 61-67), and disability compensation is an entirely separate benefit, administered through a separate government agency, to compensate all veterans (not just retirees) for service-connected injuries or illnesses, provided the injury is connected to the veteran’s military service and the veteran was not dishonorably discharged. (38 USC §§ 1110, 1131).

Military retirees were being unjustly penalized for suffering incurable injuries or diseases in the service of our nation by being denied a benefit (disability compensation) available to any veteran who served any length of time in uniform, lest they be required to surrender their earned military retirement/pension in order to avoid receiving “dual compensation.” This situation was particularly cruel when one considers that injured retirees, unlike perfectly healthy retirees, have fewer opportunities to obtain and maintain meaningful employment due to their service‑connected injuries or illnesses. They sacrificed their health and wellness to serve our country, and we denied them either their earned military pension OR the disability compensation they were entitled to, in spite of their being otherwise eligible for both, in the name of saving money.

The fix to this injustice is codified at 10 USC § 1414. That law states that military retirees who are eligible for both a military pension (retired pay) AND who are rated by the Department of Veterans Affairs as being at least 50% disabled as a result of their military service need not choose between receiving their full pension or receiving disability compensation, but may finally receive both.

As positive a step as this law and subsequent amendments to it were, there is still a group of disabled military retirees who are left out and penalized financially for becoming injured or ill in the service of our nation: military retirees who were retired with less than 20 years of qualified service due to a service-connected disability.

While one might argue that having served less than 20 years, those military retirees who were retired due to a military service-connected disability may justly be forced to choose between pension benefits and VA disability compensation, this particular class of military retirees actually has a greater need to receive both benefits. For starters, military service members involuntarily retired due to a service‑connected disability prior to completing 20 years of service have already incurred a significant financial penalty in the form of a greatly reduced pension, as military pension amounts are calculated according to the member’s highest 36 months of basic pay multiplied by either their service disabling disability percentage (which is NOT the same as their VA disability rating, and is normally far less) or a calculation involving their length of service, whichever method is more beneficial to the service member. A career cut short due to disability incurred in the line of duty is a career with a significantly lower final pay (or last 36 months) than a career allowed to continue to 20 years’ fruition.

Changing the law to ease this restriction would not “open the floodgates” to all disabled veterans. But for an injury or illness incurred in the line of duty, that is, disability due to the member’s military service, the service member will not be retired from the military for disability but will simply be discharged as unsuited for further military service. Members retired for disability must already face significant scrutiny over their injuries or illness, and a painful, protracted review process that routinely exceeds 2 years, before a decision in favor of military retirement for disability might possibly be reached.

A military member forcibly retired due to an injury or illness incurred in the line of duty, and rated as 100% disabled by the Department of Veterans Affairs, has little to no hope of ever securing meaningful employment once forcibly retired from the military. In contrast, a 20-year retiree with a 50% VA disability rating might thrive in a sedentary (e.g. office) job and secure significant earnings in addition to his or her dual military pension and VA disability compensation. Thus, the 100% disabled retiree should not be penalized for having his or her military career cut short due to a severe service‑connected disability. On the contrary, his or her sacrifice should be honored and dual compensation allowed just as it is for the 20 year retiree with a 50% disability rating.

Therefore, I propose to amend 10 USC § 1414 by deleting subparagraph (b) in its entirety, or in the alternative to amend subparagraph (b)(2) to read as follows:

(2) Disability retirees with less than 20 years of service.-Subsection (a) does not apply to a member retired under chapter 61 of this title with less than 20 years of service otherwise creditable under section 1405 of this title, or with less than 20 years of service computed under section 12732 of this title, at the time of the member’s retirement, unless the disability retiree has at least 10 years of service or is eligible for veterans’ disability compensation for a qualifying service-connected disability or disabilities rated either individually or cumulatively at 100 percent.

The longest enlistment length is 6 years, so by serving at least 10 years, a service member has essentially indicated his/her intent to make a career of military service. Being forcibly retired early due to a service-connected disability is a traumatic and heartbreaking occurrence for many disability retirees, who would have continued serving until 20 years but for becoming injured or ill in the line of duty. Likewise, a retiree rated as 100% disabled by the Department of Veterans Affairs is in a dire situation, and unlikely to be able to obtain or maintain meaningful employment. Adding either or both categories of disability retirees to 10 USC § 1414(a)’s allowance of both retired pay and veterans’ disability compensation not only further corrects the injustice partially remedied by 10 USC § 1414, but assists our most vulnerable military retirees in maintaining some semblance of a decent standard of living.

If any group of Americans is deserving of a financial benefit (or in this case, removal of an unjust financial penalty codified in law), it is military retirees who became injured or ill in the service of our nation. Therefore, I urge Congress to amend 10 USC § 1414 by either deleting subparagraph (b) in its entirety, or in the alternative by amending subparagraph (b)(2) as indicated above. To do so would make a world of difference in the lives of many military retirees who answered their nation’s call and were prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice in defense of all that this country stands for, and indeed have sacrificed their health and future employability serving our nation.

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Dock Congressional Pay When Government Shuts Down
Thomas Howard started this petition to U.S. House of Representatives and 1 other

My oldest daughter came to visit on Christmas day with the expectation that she would be receiving a furlough notice after the holidays. I am a retired transportation executive and a former Marine in my early 70’s. Katie has worked for the federal government for almost 27 years. We disagree on most domestic political issues, and we vote for different parties. But we found common ground when we started talking about the current partial government shutdown.

Our country is in a difficult place. We are divided on so many issues, even within our families. But we can all agree that when the government shuts down, the wrong people pay for it. It’s time for Members of Congress and their highest-paid staff members to be docked salary when they don’t decide on annual budgets before the start of a new fiscal year.

Continuing resolutions and government shutdowns waste taxpayer dollars year after year. Congress should be making tough decisions about how much the government should spend and for what. When they refuse to make decisions about the annual budgets of federal agencies, they create waste and chaos – without facing any consequences. Members of Congress and their senior staff are receiving their salaries during the shutdown even though they created it. Federal workers did their jobs, but they are not.

When we were together over the holidays, Katie shared some frustration about working under Continuing Resolutions year after year, regardless of which party has a majority in Congress. In the 26+ years that she has worked for the government, it has been shut down six times. Every time it looks like federal employees might be furloughed because of lapses in federal appropriations, agencies have to prepare furlough notices for thousands of employees and develop shutdown plans. This wastes millions of dollars and thousands of staff hours.

While the things we want Congress to fund and tax are different, my daughter and I agree that Congress’s failure to make decisions is seriously bad for the health of our democracy.

This is not the first time Katie has been furloughed, but when it happened in 1995 she was single and had no children. Twenty-three years later, she and her husband have three kids, two of whom are still at home. He is also a federal employee. It’s scary not knowing when the next paycheck is coming, even when you are pretty sure that the money will come eventually.

Wherever you stand on the policies and funding that are being debated during this shutdown, please join us to make sure every Member of Congress, every Senator and every senior member of the Administration knows that We the People expect them to do their job. And if they’re not going to do it, then they shouldn’t be paid.

The House of Representatives should introduce a bill to change Congressional pay regulations so future Members of Congress and their highest-paid staff members will face direct financial consequences when they cause a government shutdown.

Help Veteran with Cancer Caused by Serving our Country Receive VA Benefits
Stacy Philllips started this petition to Department of Veterans Affairs

Here we are in 2019 and I had to reopen the petition for Dan Parks, because yet again the VA has failed this Veteran. Dan went through the appeal process in the Summer of 2018. However, at the end of 2018 Dan received a letter from the VA that stated they couldn’t find the transcript from his appeal. This means he has to start over again for his disability benefits.

News story on Dan’s appeal transcripts being lost

Our family friend, Dan Parks, is a U.S. Navy veteran that fought throat cancer. He was discharged from the military, partially, to end his exposure to ionizing radiation during his work in a weapons and ammunition facility. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is denying his claim for disability benefits – despite letters from the VA’s own doctors stating that Dan’s exposure likely caused his cancer. Dan needs your help to get the VA to change their decision before it’s too late.

Dan was stationed at Naval Submarine Base New London, where he worked with ordinance. During his time at the base, he was also exposed to ionized radiation. Fast-forward a few decades later and has Dan suffered from throat cancer. He now has to plug a hole in his throat to talk; a side effect of the cancer.

Dan’s discharge paperwork from the Navy includes a stamp saying he was being discharged, in part, due to the radiation exposure.

Multiple doctors with the VA have written letters saying there is a better than even chance that the cancer was caused by Dan’s radiation exposure during his time in the Navy. But the VA has denied his disability claim. The reason? They say there’s no proof he was exposed to radiation in the Navy.

As Dan says, “If the VA won’t accept their own doctors, where does a veteran turn?”

Dan’s been fighting for benefits for three years. He filed an appeal, but the VA won’t review it for another 18 months. Time is running out. He needs access to life-saving treatment before it’s too late.

Please sign this petition calling on the VA to accept their own doctors’ assessments and grant Dan Parks needed health benefits due to the radiation exposure he endured while serving our country.

"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" - George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting - this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." - George Orwell